Why Did Michael Dukakis Carry Iowa in 1988?
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  Why Did Michael Dukakis Carry Iowa in 1988?
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Author Topic: Why Did Michael Dukakis Carry Iowa in 1988?  (Read 2214 times)
Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey
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« on: February 15, 2010, 06:56:09 PM »

Why did he carry it on such a comfortable margin when it had voted Republican in the last five elections? I'd understand it if the election was a Dukakis landslide, but it was a Bush landslide (in the EV). So what caused that to happen?
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Bo
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« Reply #1 on: February 15, 2010, 07:18:28 PM »

Dukakis won Iowa and several other Midwestern states by a decent margin in 1988 because the Midwest was experiencing economic difficulties in the late 1980s while the rest of the nation's economy was booming.
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Nym90
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« Reply #2 on: February 15, 2010, 07:21:53 PM »

1. Farm crisis
2. Rural whites were more Democratic in 1988 than in 2008 especially vis-a-vis the national average.
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Husker
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« Reply #3 on: February 15, 2010, 11:50:42 PM »

Farm problems that persisted in the 1980's and a terrible drought in the summer of 1988 contributed to Dukakis winning.
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phk
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« Reply #4 on: February 16, 2010, 12:11:50 AM »

Farm problems that persisted in the 1980's and a terrible drought in the summer of 1988 contributed to Dukakis winning.

As well as rural Whites being a lot more Democratic in 1988 in general.
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Husker
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« Reply #5 on: February 16, 2010, 02:33:56 PM »
« Edited: February 16, 2010, 02:35:30 PM by Husker »

Farm problems that persisted in the 1980's and a terrible drought in the summer of 1988 contributed to Dukakis winning.

As well as rural Whites being a lot more Democratic in 1988 in general.

In this part of the country, agriculture tends to be the foundation issue in elections. If things are good, then the party in power tends to be ok. In the 1980's many farmers in Iowa (and elsewhere) had severe financial problems and the democrats were able to pick up on that. A county swing map from 1980/1984 to 1988 would show that a broad swath from eastern NE/ND/SD into IL had sizable swings to the democrats. Fast forward to 2008: The lack of support for corn based ethanol hurt McCain badly in Iowa and northern IL and some of the eastern plains counties were the most democratic they have been since 1964. Iowa would have been far more competitive had McCain strongly supported ethanol and Obama would have won less counties in northern IL, SD, ND, and NE.

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